White 2 Tea’s 200X Wuliang

As soon as I saw that White 2 Tea had listed an aged Wuliang (not too long ago, maybe a few weeks?) I knew that I wanted to try it. Unfortunately I ordered from W2T not too long ago and didn’t really need to make another one. However, I found a a Redditor who had ordered a cake, and after asking them what they thought of it they kindly offered me a sample!

The leaf is a medium brown colored and the buds have matured to a nice aged gold. The tea has a bit of the “funky” smell of a not-so-dry stored sheng. I load about 6g into my 90mL jianshui pot and give it a boiling rinse.

It brews a nice clear medium orange color. Up front is has a woody note, somewhere between dry camphor and fresh pine. It also has a honeyed, fruity/yeasty funk (in a good way) that reminds me of a bit of a Belgian ale. Bitterness and astringency are pretty low, but astringency increases if you let the brewed tea sit. The mouthfeel starts off buttery but ends with a clean minerality.

As I keep brewing the fruityness fades some and is gradually (though never completely) replaced by a a vegetal pumpkin-like taste and a sweetness more like fresh sugarcane. After brewing out most of a liter of water, I begin to feel a bit sedated and I take time to notice the late afternoon sunlight sifting through the tree branches.

The spent leaves are mostly brown with a few small patches of green. I enjoyed this tea a lot! It reminds me a bit of W2T’s Repave, but fruitier and more approachable. It’s easily on of the better aged shengs that I’ve had for it’s price range. There is definitely a cake (at least one) of this in my future.